"Congreve's Double Dealer (says he) is much censured by the greater part of the Town, and is defended only by the best judges, who, you know, are commonly the fewest; yet it gains ground daily, and has already been acted eight times. The women think he has exposed their bitchery too much, and the gentlemen are offended with him for the discovery of their follies, and the way of their intrigues under the notion of friendship to their ladies' husbands." Dr. Johnson objects to the plots of Congreve's comedies, in some of which the play terminates with a marriage in a mask. This excellent and acute critic did not, perhaps, recollect, that till the beginning of Queen Anne's reign women used to come to the theatres in a mask. This practice was forbidden by a proclamation of that Queen, in the first year of her reign. Mr. Congreve, after having been at the expence of the education of the young representative of his ancient and illustrious family, left nearly the whole of his fortune to Henrietta,Duchess of Marlborough, An Essay on the Difference between Wit and Humour, in a Letter to Mr. Dennis the Critic, from Mr. Congreve, is printed in the Baskerville edition of this comic writer's works. It is very short, but very well done. SHAKSPEARE'S COMMON PLACE BOOK. From Gilchrist's Examination of the Charges against Ben Jonson. Mr. CHALMERS finds that Jonson's fifty-sixth epigram, on Poetic Ape," was intended as a lampoon on Shakspeare. Thus: 66 Poor Poet-Ape, that would be thought our chief, From brokage is become so bold a thief, As we, the robb'd, leave rage, and pity it. At first, he made low shifts, would pick, and glean; Into a little wealth, and credit in the scene, He takes up all, makes each man's wit his own. He marks not whose 'twas first; and after-times Fool, as if half-eyes will not know a fleece C c With much self-complacency, Mr. Chalmers observes on these verses, "the eye must be blind indeed, if it do not see, that Shakspeare was the Poet-Ape of Ben Jonson." If Mr. Chalmers really does perceive the resemblance, he must, I think, Have eyes where other folks are blind, As pigs are said to see the wind. I have marked the passages according to the distinction used by the apologist, and we shall see how he makes the application. Where the modest Shakspeare expressed a wish to be thought our chief," he has not cared to show. But, "*in order to decide what we ought to believe, in these matters, as things certain, we must look back upon the early management of our theatres. The papers of Henslowe, the well known manager of so many companies, throw many flashes of light on this obscure subject. It is apparent, from these manuscripts, that the poets of the days of Elizabeth, and James, supplied the stage with dramas, more for profit than reputation. If we except Ben Jonson, perhaps, there were none of the dramatists, including Shak speare, specially, who cared for literary reputation, The managers of the theatres who paid their money for plays, considered these plays as so much their own, that they could either curtail them, or make addycions to them in fact, they often paid one set of poets, to alter the dramas of another set, without considering the literary reputation of the original author."+ That none of the dramatists, excepting Jonson, cared for literary reputation, is an error abundantly proved by the multitude of plays with dedications by their authors: and the fact, stated by Mr. Chalmers, of their selling their works to the players, is a reason why all but the names of many are lost, more convincing than the alleged oscitancy of the poets.-But this is not the object of my present inquiry. To the practice of curtailing and making additions to plays I accede, and from this very circumstance I infer, that the poet-ape of Jonson was any body but Shakspeare. Jonson could not attack Shakspeare as wishing * Supplemental Apology, page 237, 8vo. 1799. " to be his chief," before the former was introduced to the stage and the MS. to which Mr. Chalmers refers begins in 1597. Among the alterers and repairers of decayed dramas, we find the names of Dekker, Drayton, Chettle, Anthony Munday, Heywood, and a long et cætera of poets, the memorials of whose lives have, perhaps, undeservedly perished; but among these * entries not once does the name of our beloved Shakspeare," occur. That Shakspeare wrote on the subjects already dramatized by inferior authors, is not to be denied; but that he lived by the brokage of others' wit," or that he altered plays for his theatre, is not proved in a solitary instance; that he ever did, is barely possible: but that he did not, after Jonson became a retainer to the stage, seems proved by the absence of his name in the MS. of Henslowe. It cannot be too much to require of Mr. Chalmers, who has given us two sisterly octavos crying proof! proof! † something approaching to evidence of the truth of his assertions. That the works of Shakspeare are "e'en the frippery of wit," Mr. Chalmers proves in his Apology." by citing Marston's description of a fop in his day; who *Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Hor. Od. 9. lib. iv. The horse-leech hath two daughters crying give, give. Proverbs, xxx. 15. Luscus, what's play'd to-day? fayth now I know Say; who acts best? Drusus or Roscio ?" H'ath made a common place-book out of plays, As warranted by certain plaudites. If e'er you heard him courting Lesbia's eyes; Marston's Stat. 10. 1599. (like many fops of our own) being play-mad, spoke of nothing but plays and players, whose conversation was of the newest and most popular tragedy, from which he courted his Lesbia most pathetically, and from which he borrowed all his jests and raillery. In this coxcomb of antiquity Mr. Chalmers recognises the features of Shakspeare, and boasts of his discovery in the following terms: "We now perceive, that Shakspeare's table-talk turned chiefly on his profession; that he ne'er of ought did speak but when of play or players he did treate. We at length perceive, that Shakspeare had discernment enough to know the value of a common-place-book to a professed writer: he made a common-place-book out of plays: he writes, he rails, he jests, he courts, what not; and all from out his huge long-scraped stock of wellpenn'd plays. This is such a delineation of our dramatist as his admirers have never seen before."-No; I'll be sworn! and as Costard says, 66 an I had but a penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread," for the discovery. No one before Mr. Chalmers, I am well persuaded, ever contemplated the great poet, "of imagination all compact," as the Lazarus of literature; like his own moth living on the alms-basket of words, and at a great feast of plays, as stealing the scraps: but since this discovery has been made, I am confident that the author of The Rambler has satirized Shakspeare under the wit Papilius, subsisting a week upon an expression, of which he who dropped it, did not know the value." Go by, Jeronimo.' If this be the consequence In the 34th of Elizabeth's reign, John Marston was chosen reader of the Inner Temple; and among the Oxford verses on the death of that princess, there is a copy signed John Marston ex œda Christi. O. G. "It is a fact, which cannot be disputed, that Marston was, in 1599, very intimately connected with Ben Jonson, who was then at variance with Shakspeare: Marston and Jonson afterwards quarrelled; as such poets could not long be friends: Marston again parodied Shakspeare in his "What you Wish," 1697, wherein he Bays; "Look ye, I speak play scrapes." Supplemental Apology, 251, note i. Here are five positions in the course of as many lines, some of which are utterly erroneous, and not one of which can Mr. Chalmers prove; unless he has some secret evidence, not yet before the public. I am aware of the notice of Marston in Drummond's conversation with Jonson, |